State trooper hurt in crash on I-4 near Seffner

A Florida state trooper was injured in a crash Wednesday night on Interstate 4 in the area of Seffner, the Florida Highway Patrol said.

Two lanes of westbound I-4 were closed just west of McIntosh Road, but reopened this morning, the FHP said.

The injury to Trooper Anthony Horne, 46, of Tampa, was minor, said Larry McKinnon, a Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office spokesman. The sheriff’s office was on the scene assisting FHP with traffic. FHP is investigating the crash.

Just before 10 p.m., Horne was completing a crash investigation on I-4 in the Seffner area. The two vehicles in the crash had been heading westbound. After the crash, one vehicle was on the outside shoulder and the other vehicle was in the inside shoulder.

Horne went to drive across I-4 to take 32-year-old Sarah Peterson of Riverview, the driver of the unoccupied 2006 Honda Civic that was left in the inside shoulder, back to her car, FHP said.

As Horne drove across the lanes, the trooper’s vehicle, which had its emergency lights on, was struck by a box truck driven by 63-year-old Rex Myerscough of Clearwater, who was heading west on I-4, FHP said.

The front of the truck struck the patrol vehicle, causing the patrol car to rotate into the emergency lane and crash into the vacant vehicle that was in the inside shoulder. The truck also rotated and crashed with another vehicle heading west on I-4, a 2000 Mitsubishi Galant driven by 18-year-old Heidi Umana, of Tampa.

Horne was transported to Lakeland Regional Medical Center. Peterson and Umana were taken to Brandon Regional Medical Center, the FHP said.

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